When God forgives us, He makes
a very important promise to us that we must also make when we forgive others.
God says, “I will forgive their sins and will no longer remember their
wrongs.” (Hebrews 8:12 TEV) “I will not remember their sins and evil
deeds any longer.” (Hebrews 10:17 TEV) We are to follow God’s example when we
forgive, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins
and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”(Hebrews 8:12 NKJV) “God
did not keep an account of their sins” (2 Corinthians 5:19 TEV) "I, even
I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will
not remember your sins.”(Isaiah 43:25 NKJV) “I will forgive their
sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
(Jeremiah 31:34 TEV) When God forgives He does not keep count. He does not keep
a record of our sins. He chooses not to remember our sins.He lets
us start afresh.

The passages below are taken from Max
Lucado’s book “God Came Near,” published in 1986 by Multnomah Publishers,
Inc.

I WAS THANKING THE FATHER TODAY FOR HIS
MERCY. I began listing the sins he’d forgiven. One by one I thanked God for
forgiving my stumbles and tumbles. My motives were pure and my heart was
thankful, but my understanding of God was wrong. It was when I used the word
remember that it hit me.

“Remember the time I. . .” I was about to
thank God for another act of mercy. But I stopped. Something was wrong.

The word remember
seemed displaced. It was an off-key note in asonata, a misspelled word in a poem. It
was a baseball game in December. It didn’t fit. “Does he remember?”

Then I remembered. I remembered his
words. “And I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12 RSV)

Wow! Now, that is a remarkable promise.

God doesn’t just forgive, he forgets. He
erases the board. He destroys the evidence. He burns the microfilm. He clears
the computer.

He doesn’t remember my mistakes. For all
the things he does do, this is one thing he refuses to do. He refuses to keep a
list of my wrongs. When I ask for forgiveness he doesn’t pull out a clipboard
and say, “But I’ve already forgiven him for that five hundred and sixteen
times.”

He doesn’t remember.

“As far as the east is from the west, so
far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalms 103:12 NLT)

“I will be merciful toward their
iniquities.” (Hebrews 8:12 RSV)

“Even if you are stained as red as
crimson, I can make you white as wool!” (Isaiah 1:18 TLB)

No, he doesn’t remember. But I do, you
do. You still remember. You’re like me. You still remember what you did before
you changed. In the cellar of your heart lurk the ghosts of yesterday’s sins.
Sins you’ve confessed; errors of which you’ve repented; damage you’ve done your
best to repair.

And though you’re a different person, the
ghosts still linger. Though you’ve locked the basement door, they still haunt
you. They float to meet you, spooking your soul and robbing your joy. With
wordless whispers they remind you of moments when you forgot whose child you
were.

That horrid lie.

That business trip you took away from
home, that took you so far away from home.

The time you exploded in anger.

Those years spent in the hollow of
Satan’s hand.

That day you were needed, but didn’t
respond.

That date.

That jealousy.

That habit.

Poltergeists from yesterday’s pitfalls.
Spiteful specters thatslyly
suggest, “Are you really forgiven? Sure, God forgets most of our mistakes, but
do you think he could actually forget the time you...”

As a result, your spiritual walk has a
slight limp. Oh, you’re still faithful. You still do all the right things and
say all the right words. But just when you begin to make strides, just when your
wings begin to spread and you prepare to soar like an eagle, the ghost appears.
It emerges from the swamps of your soul and causes you to question yourself.

“You can’t teach a Bible class with your
background.”

“You, a missionary?”

“How dare you ask him to come to church.
What if he finds out about the time you fell away?”

“Who are you to offer help?”

The ghost spews waspish words of
accusation, deafening your ears to the promises of the cross. And it flaunts
your failures in your face, blocking your vision of the Son and leaving you the
shadow of a doubt.

Now, honestly. Do you think God sent
that ghost? Do you think God is the voice that reminds you of the putridness of
your past?

Do you think God was teasing when he
said, “I will remember your sins no more?” Was he exaggerating when he said he
would cast our sins as far as the east is from the west? Do you actually
believe he would make a statement like “I will not hold their iniquities against
them” and then rub our noses in them whenever we ask for help?

Of course you don’t. You and I just need
an occasional reminder of God’s nature, his forgetful nature.

To love conditionally is against God’s
nature. Just as it’s against your nature to eat trees and against mine to grow
wings, it’s against God’s nature to remember forgiven sins.

You see, God is either the God of perfect
grace... or he is not God. Grace forgets. Period. He who is perfect love cannot
hold grudges. If he does, then he isn’t perfect love. And if he isn’t perfect
love, you might as well put this book down and go fishing, because both of us
are chasing fairy tales.

But I believe in his loving
forgetfulness. And I believe he has a graciously terrible memory.

Think about this. If he didn’t forget,
how could we pray? How could we sing to him? How could we dare enter into his
presence if the moment he saw us he remembered all our pitiful past? How could
we enter his throne room wearing the rags of our selfishness and gluttony? We
couldn’t.

And we don’t. Read this powerful passage
from Paul’s letter to the Galatians and watch your pulse rate. You’re in for a
thrill. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ.” (Galatians 3:27 RSV, italics mine)

You read it right. We have “put on”
Christ. When God looks at us he doesn’t see us; he sees Christ. We “wear”
him. We are hidden in him; we are covered by him. As the song says, “Dressed
in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.”

Presumptuous, you say? Sacrilegious? It
would be if it were my idea. But it isn’t; it’s his. We are presumptuous not
when we marvel at his grace, but when we reject it. And we’re sacrilegious not
when we claim his forgiveness, but when we allow the haunting sins of yesterday
to convince us that God forgives but he doesn’t forget.

Do yourself a favor. Purge your cellar.
Exorcise your basement. Take the Roman nails off Calvary and board up the door.